


Apple

by Darksknight



Series: We Will Meet Again [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Academy Era, Gen, Recovery, Starfleet Academy, Tarsus IV, after Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 10:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12386199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darksknight/pseuds/Darksknight
Summary: “I had a lot of friends on Tarsus,” Jim said. “A lot of good kids. A lot of… a lot of kids that died, Bones."





	Apple

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to include this in chapter 14 of "In the Shadow of Fate," but there wasn't really any room for it. Reads fine as a separate piece.

Jim knew not to go.

He’d seen the syllabus on day one, and he’d carefully marked it down in his PADDs, his comm, his calendar, his everything. He knew what was coming, when it was coming, and how. He wasn’t going to go.

Fucking Bones.

“Jim, I swear to the good Lord, if you leave me in group discussion by myself I will sign on to the damn USS Nebula when we ship out, and you can find yourself another CMO.”

Jim had managed to avoid the History of Terran Space Travel for a good week. He’d already had all his excuses nicely lined up. His poor, poor aunt Edna was just not doing so well, and he was taking the only time he had available to comm her hospital in Hong Kong. It was unexpected that she would recover, but Jim had neatly planned on her sudden recovery about the time the week was out. He’d almost fucking made it. 

He’d even gone through the trouble of creating a medical file for Bones to frown and shake his head over. As guilty as it made him feel to hear the man say, “I’m sorry kid, it looks like they’re doing all they can,” well, it was better than the alternative.

Said alternative was staring him in the face, and it was ugly.

“I’m not going, Bones.” Jim said, stubbornly. “I’ve got to comm my aunt-“

“Edna. I know. I thought you said it was looking like she was getting better?”

“You know how rocky it is,” Jim said. 

“You said, and I quote, that ‘it looks like she’s going to make a full recovery’ and that she’d be out of the hospital by the end of the week because it was a damn false alarm.”

“It’s still delicate right now!” Jim snapped. “I can’t just- not call her!” 

“Jim, I’d never even heard of this estranged aunt until she was on her death bed. If you don’t have to make your peace with her, you can chit chat once in a blue moon like you did before.” Bone narrowed his eyes. “You can comm her every day of the week, I don’t care, but you abandon me to the wolves and I’ll never forgive you.”

“Why didn’t the fucking professor just get you a new partner?”

“We have an even amount of people in the class, Jim. I picked you because even if you’re juvenile, you show up to class and you work damn hard on your studies. It’s one group discussion, and if I don’t have someone to speak with me, and I have to stand up and talk to all those damn pairs by myself, I will get the worst grade of my career.”

Jim had seen Bones try to speak by himself in a pinch. It was like watching holos of ships crumbling in on themselves due to faulty air pressure regulators. Horrifying, and yet, you couldn’t look away. 

Jim glared. “I’m not going, Bones.”

“It’s one hour,” Bones growled. “You can sit through it for one hour, say a few words, I don’t care. But I didn’t get an excuse not to go, so you’re coming with me.”

“My aunt, Bones-“

“Is going to be fine. Now get your stuff, we’re going.”

Jim didn’t want to go. He was out of excuses, though, and if he dug his heels in Bones would go prodding and then he’d really be in a corner. He would usually have faked sick, but there was no way to do that with Bones, because the man could squint at you and diagnose you with a case of BS in under a second. 

“Fine,” Jim snapped. He grabbed his bag off the floor. “Lead the way.”

Bones gave him a look. “Lord, Jim, no need to bite my head off.”

Jim didn’t bother apologizing. He just followed after Leonard, feeling a deep seed of discomfort forming in his gut with each step he took. He spotted the marque on the door- _Guest Lecturer Dr. B. Flint: Tarsus IV_ \- and cringed. 

He would just zone out the lecture and spew some bullshit when they were asked to talk. Bones would kill him for it, but so long as the Doctor was saving someone’s ass, he really could put together a speech, so even if Jim floundered, they still had a chance. 

It would be fine.

He wished he could have said that he hadn’t thought about Tarsus in a long time. Contrarily, he also wished he could have said that he thought about it every day- that he never forgot about what happened, even for a minute. Neither of those were true, though. Jim was reminded of Tarsus sometimes once a month, sometimes weeks on end, but it all depended on what was happening around him. When he was reminded of it after a long time of having not thought of it, he was at first upset at having to remember yet again, and then even more upset for having the audacity to _forget_ about it. He felt like he was betraying each and every person who’d died, there, when he didn’t think about it daily. 

If he did think about it that often, though, he felt he might go insane. 

It was a delicate balance. The first time he’d eaten a burger after the incident, he’d cried- long and hard. He been able to get down a single bite before he’d started to sob, and he’d ended up locking himself in a bathroom for hours thereafter trying to get himself together. 

The first time he’d gone a good month without thinking about it at all, he’d said to someone, “Yeah, let’s get something to eat, I’m starving.” He’d realized just as he said it that he’d not thought of Tarsus in a while. He hadn’t been able to eat after that, consumed by guilt. 

He didn’t have the right to say he was starving. Not when the others had actually died from it, and he had lived. He called up fellow survivor Mel every now and then to see how she was doing, but he always felt guilty when he did. Modern medicine was amazing, but there were some things even it couldn’t reverse. Her growth had been stunted, so she never looked exactly the way he imagined she would have otherwise. They never really talked about Tarsus. They talked about how they were coping with it, but never about what happened. Mel didn’t remember most of it, anyway, since she'd been so young, and sick, and delirious. Jim felt that was for the best, in a way.

He snapped back to the present as the lecture started and shot a glare at Bones, who wasn’t looking his way. 

Jim toned the lecture out just as soon as it began. He was vaguely familiar with Dr. Flint’s work in regards to Tarsus IV, just enough to know that she knew what she was talking about. But there wasn’t anything she’d tell them that Jim didn’t already know, and frankly, he didn’t want to hear about it. He pulled his PADD out and ignored Bones’s look of disgust, pulling up a book to read.

Stupid. It was stupid. He toned back in every now and then, when Dr. Flint’s voice would change pitch or tone. Once he glanced up and caught a holo of a boy who’s ribs and hips looked as though they were trying to escape his skin. Jim felt his stomach drop out and looked quickly back down at his PADD. 

His little group wasn’t too terribly special. There had been others that had hidden in the woods, eating the bark off the trees, chewing on grass, looking for edible foliage day in, day out. Then there were those chosen by Kodos to live, but… 

Well, no one on the planet had fared well. 

_Not even Kodos_ , Jim reminded himself with a twisted sense of satisfaction. The Governor had burned to death, and as far as Jim was concerned, the man was still burning- in hell.

The group discussion started thirty minutes in. Jim toned those out as well. Instinctually, he looked up anytime anyone stood, hearing the scrape of chairs, but for the most part, he contented himself to read about particle acceleration. He was half way through the stupid lecture. If he could ignored the others students, then he’d be totally fine. It was the last day of the scheduled talks on Tarsus IV, so Jim could declare his fake-aunt healthy as a horse and resume his usual schedule. Everything was going to be fine.

Jim looked up as the guy at the table next to them stood. He looked back down at his PADD just as quickly, but the man was close, and Jim didn’t have the peace of mind to tune him out. He tried to read, but the guy was standing right next to him. The cadet's voice was unusually loud in the quiet of the lecture hall.

“But Kodos did the math,” the man said. “I know it’s kinda fucked up to say- but wasn’t he right? If Starfleet hadn’t shown up those two months early, everyone would have died. Wasn’t he… correct by killing some people?”

Jim felt his heart stop. He stared blankly at the PADD before him. 

_“I looked over your work,” Kodos said. “All of it. It was commendable, really- a very valiant effort. But the equation was wrong. You didn’t change it, look at it differently. X amount of food, Y amount of humans, Z amount of time.”_

_“That’s not true” Jet said, slowly. “We tested with all kinds of different amounts of food and time.”_

_“But not people,” Kodos said._

_“You can’t change the number of people,” Jet said. “We know how many people are on the planet- there’s records. It wouldn’t make any sense to re-do the equation with any imaginary number, because in the end, there will still be that amount of people.”_

_Kodos said, “So it would seem.”_

But they hadn’t looked at the equation wrong. Kodos had. Z amount of time was the only thing that needed to be changed, and it _had_ been, but by then, it had been too late. Imaginary numbers didn’t matter, and Y amount of humans could have been changed all they liked in the equation, but it was still imaginary. They didn’t know if the other numbers would change.

_ "RUN!" Dan screamed. She rushed Kodo's men, phaser drawn. She shot one, and he disappeared in a wave of light, but that was as far as she got. The disrupter tore through her body in a single bolt of green, and she dissolved in on herself, gone in a shimmer of bright color, her scream lingering on after her. _

“He at least tried to keep the people most likely to survive from dying,” the guy was continuing. “He started off by killing criminals. A lot of people there were only there because they’d been arrested, so… maybe he had the right-“

One second Jim was sitting, the next he was punching the guy in the face. 

Jim’s yell echoed through the lecture hall as he tackled the guy, throwing him to the ground. He punched the man in the face- once, twice- there was blood on his knuckles and the guy was screaming. Jim felt strong arms wrap around him and haul him back, and there were people talking to him- Bones, Bones was talking to him, demanding to know what the hell was wrong with him, but Jim didn’t care. 

“You really think that?!” He shouted. “You really think it was the right idea? You fucking- you fucking idiot! Eugenics had nothing to do with who would live and who would die. The very first to go out there in the woods were the kids Kodos said would make it! You- you fucking- yeah! Arrested! You think that means we were worth less? That we deserved to fucking be slaughtered? They were just kids you fucking piece of shit! Kids who did bad things because they couldn’t help it and- I’d like. I’d _love_ to see you try to last one fucking day without food you piece of fucking-“ 

He finally shouldered free of Bones, and the other woman who’d come to hold him back, and dove towards the guy again. He ran, down the isles between the desks, cupping his nose as it gushed blood. Another two cadets rushed forward to hold Jim back, all of them yelling. 

Jim met eyes with Dr. Flint across the room. “If this what you’re teaching!?” He screamed. “That anyone had any right to die, to kill?!”

She was shocked, eyes wide, hand braced over her heart. Still, she shook her head ‘no.’ 

The cadet had fled the lecture hall. Jim felt some of his fury leach out of him at the disappearance. He stopped fighting the four people who held him back, just long enough that their grips went lax, and then ripped himself away from them. 

He turned to the rest of the staring lecture hall. 

“Fuck you!” He yelled.

“Jim,” Bones hissed, “What in the sweet hell do you think you’re-“

“Fuck each and every one of you who think any one person’s life is worth less than another. You guys all gasp and sigh and shake your heads when you hear about this shit and say ‘oh, how could this have ever happened?’ You wanna know how it happened? People like you! Who think that, oh, well, as long as it’s not me, as long as it’s those trouble makers, it must be okay, right? Fuck you!” 

Jim grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He didn’t run out of the lecture hall, but it was a near thing. He stormed the exit and let the doors slam shut loudly behind him, not caring what they’d say when he was gone, not caring that the class was wrecked. 

He wiped the tears of his face.

“Fuck,” he whispered. He headed out of the building, and into the noonday light.

God, he was starving. 

 

* * *

 

He came back to the dorm around four in the morning. 

Bones was up, waiting for him.

As soon as Jim stepped inside, Bones stood. Before he could start in, Jim threw his bag on the floor and said, “Bones, you’re my best friend, but if you try to lecture me right now I will seriously punch you in the face.”

Bones’s eyes narrowed at the challenge. 

“Not. Tonight.” Jim spat. He shouldered past Bones and started towards his room.

“I thought you said you were done with fist fights,” Bones called. 

Jim sighed and turned around. He’d almost made it to his room. He slumped agains the doorframe and said, “I thought I said I don’t want to talk about it tonight.”

“Jim, the man was just sharing his opinion. You attacked him. You- you looked like a crazy person.”

“Well he looked like a fucking Kodos supporter.”

“Kodos sup-“ Bones splutter. “Jim, there’s no such thing as a Kodos supporter!” 

“Shows how much you know,” Jim sniped. “After the incident there were tons of people who defended him. Said that if everything had gone to Kodos’s plan, things would have been alright. People who said that Kodos would have been praised a hero for keeping half the population alive, if Starfleet hadn’t shown up early. Hell, there were people who wrote goddamn articles about how the survivors made the whole thing up. Doctors, Bones! Doctors putting out papers about how the whole thing was a conspiracy.”

“Jim, no one believes those crack pots!” 

“Yes, they do!” Jim said. “Enough to do harm, do, Bones!” He raked a hand through his hair. “One person starts talking like that, and then there’s more, and more, and pretty soon the survivors are getting angry letters about how they’re hurting the fucking Federation by playing along to one big lie, saying they deserve to die, that-“

“You’re acting insane,” Bones snapped. “What is wrong with you? Why’re you so obsessed with this?”

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you!? You should be mad! You don't get it. You don't get it- none of you fucking get it!" He slammed his fist into the doorframe. "Damn it! That Doctor just fucking lets you talk like that? Just- just lets you all speculate about the what ifs? He said those kids deserved to die, Bones!"

"He said nothing of the sort," Bones hissed. "And you can get off your high horse right now, Jim. You don't know more than the professor this time, as much as you may want to."

"Yes, I do!"

"How can you even think that?"

“Because!” Jim shouted. “I was on fucking Tarsus, Bones!” 

Silence.

It fell over them, heavy and thick, like an old, scratchy blanket. It was suffocating. Jim burned with it and fidgeted where he stood, unable to stand the way Bones stared on and on, completely blindsided by the bomb he'd dropped in the middle of their dorm room. He swallowed hard and sucked in a shuddering breath, and then pressed the heals of his hands into his eyes.

“I was on Tarsus,” Jim whispered.

“Jim,” Bones breathed. “Jesus. Jim, I. I had no idea. I’m so sorry, Jim, I…”

Jim shrugged uncomfortably, looking away. “You know. Everyone makes it out like it looked bleak from the start. Lots of prisoners on the colony, you know. But it really wasn’t. It was a nice place to live. In the start. We… we uh,” Jim felt tears on his face and choked. “Shit.”

“Jim-“

“It’s fine,” Jim hurried. “I shouldn’t have gone to the stupid class. I should have made up another excuse.”

Bones fell back into the couch, sitting roughly. He stared down at his hands. 

“Notice, uh, that I say another.” Jim forced a laugh. “I um. I don’t have an aunt Edna.”

Bones nodded, numbly. "Jim..."

"You don't understand, Bones." Jim said, softly. "What it was like."

"I... I'm trying, Jim. I'm sorry."

It was quiet for a minute. But all the things from his past felt like they were worms, living inside of him, wriggling and churning in his body, choking him in their attempt to escape. He licked his lips and then leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. He opened his mouth. There was no stopping it.

“I had a lot of friends on Tarsus,” Jim said, quietly. “A lot of good kids. A lot of… a lot of kids that died, Bones. And when people talk like that, saying that, that because we were there because we were criminals… implying that it wasn’t so bad that we were the first to go. It’s like everything we did. Everything we struggled for, all of it, was for nothing. These people don’t know what it was like, Bones. To watch your friends starve to death. I had to bury them. I had to bury my friends- most of them didn’t even make it to their fucking teenage years, and then these assholes who’ve never gone hungry a day in their life have the absolute fucking gal to stand up and say, well, hey, it wasn’t so bad if it was just the criminals. Right?” 

Jim sunk slowly to the floor. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his forehead there, letting himself cry. “You think people like that are harmless idiots just spouting off crap. But they’re the reason it happened. Kodos was just one guy, you know. It took people who thought that others deserved to die more than they did. It took people who thought us troubled kids could be killed without it being too big of a loss. Kodos had soldiers, Bones. Kodos had tons of support. Things got bad because Kodos had people who thought that we didn’t deserve to live, too.”

Bones leaned back into the couch, letting out a long breath. “Jesus.”

“Yeah,” Jim laughed, shakily. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How do you come out with that one?” Jim asked. “Oh, hey, by the way, just thought you should know, I’m like, one of the people who almost died on that clusterfuck they’re always talking about making holos after?” 

“Good god.”

“Tell me about it.” Jim said. “If they do make a holo, I want it to be called ‘To Eat, or Not to Eat- You Are My Dead Friend.’”

Bones choked. 

“Yeah.” Jim said. “That’s about the reaction I’d hope for.”

“I don’t know what to say, Jim.” Bones “Just that… I really am sorry.”

Jim shrugged. “Nothing to be sorry about. It happened. It’s over.”

“Did any of your friends make it?”

“Two out of nine. Or ten. I guess Dan was my friend, too.”

“Dear god.”

“I still talk to Mel fairly often. Haven’t spoken to Kevin in forever; we didn't get that close because... well, I guess I didn't want to. I was afraid he wasn't going to make it. But last I heard he was interested in enlisting in Starfleet. So maybe I’ll see him again.” He looked up at the ceiling. “It was bad, Bones. I don’t know what they told you in class this week, but. It was really, really bad.”

“If I’d known all that stuff…” Bones sighed. “I wouldn’t have called you crazy.”

“Not many people know about it. Or think about it, really. Freedom of speech and all that. For you guys, it’s just a class. Just a topic to debate over. I get it.”

“But still.” Bone frowned. “I wish you could tell them the facts, too.”

Jim slowly looked over his way.

“What?”

“You know,” Jim said, slowly. “Maybe I will.”

“Huh?”

“Bones,” Jim said, seriously. “If I ask you to help me, will you?”

“Well, sure, kid, whatever you want. But what’re you planning?”

Jim smiled, albeit weakly. “A little bit of therapy for my crazy ass.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jim watched the door for movement, knowing that the first cadets would begin to steam in through the door in mere seconds. He caught sight of the plaque mounted on the door and swallowed.

_Guest Lecturer Dr. B. Flint and assistant J. Kirk: Tarsus IV_

The first few people to step into class seemed surprised to see him, and even further baffled by his presence at the head of the room. To his right, Doctor Flint was sitting at a desk going over files on her PADD, but Jim had nothing to do but stand awkwardly and face each one of his peers as they stepped past.

He eventually turned around and walked over to Dr. Flint, leaning over the desk to whisper to her. “On a scale of on to ten,” he said, “How pissed would you be if I decided to back out now?”

“You need to ask yourself that question,” she said. “I don’t think it matters so much if I’ll be disappointed in you, but rather, if _you_ will be disappointed in you.”

Jim narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you sure you’re not a therapist?”

She winked at him.

Bones sudden materialized at his arm. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Got caught up in the lab.”

“It’s fine,” Jim said. He patted Bones’s shoulder to disguise the shaking in his hands. He looked up at the chronometer on the wall. “Ready to get this show on the road?”

“If you are,” Bones said, carefully.

“No way in hell am I ready,” Jim laughed. “But I’ve been sitting on this one for a while. Might as well… you know. Let some other people benefit from it. I owe the kids who… I owe it to the ones who didn’t make it.”

Bones nodded, solemnly.

“Okay.” Jim turned to the rest of the room and clapped his hands loudly together. Most of them had shown up and taken their seats. He wasn't too surprised by the absences, and he wasn't going to wait for those who weren't there to show up. “Hello, and welcome to your extended lecture on Tarsus IV. You’re probably all wondering what the hell I’m doing up here, especially after I went crazy and decked a classmate yesterday. I’m not here to apologize, first of all, but I am here to explain. Not about me. Well, partially about me. But mostly about Tarsus.”

An uncomfortable whisper made its way through the room. 

Jim forced a smile. “So. Let’s start out on debunking some rumors, shall we? For one. Kodos never actually announced his plan; that’s not what caused the mass panic. Rather, he showed up, played nice, made his piece, and then would begin the slaughter. Or… well, I mean, it’s not how it went every time, every where. But… that’s how it went with me.”

Silence.

“Yeah.” Jim rubbed the back of his neck, and then looked up at the holo projector as his presentation flickered to life. “Now you all know why you had to sign nondisclosure files before coming in here today. So! Let’s get right into it. I call this slide, ‘Tarsus was a shit hole that no kid should have gone through,’ and, as you can see, it’s a picture of me and my two friends in the hospital after we were rescued. Take it in, because no one’s ever going to see me that skinny again.”

Jim could feel their horror like a palpable thing.

“Before you start to think this is going to be a lecture on guilt… It’s not. I’m not here to make you feel bad. I’m not here to shock and horrify you. I’m here to talk about how the hell this could have possibly happened, and then I’m going to talk about how you don’t let it happen again. And that starts with horrifying you. Because me and those kids? We’re the criminals you heard about. We’re the ones whose DNA said we were less likely to make it. When it’s put down on paper, maybe it doesn’t sound so horrible, but I want you to look up there at my face, and my friend’s faces, and try to convince yourself that there’s anyone out there who deserves to die any more than anyone else. I want you to look at Mel’s face, and try to reason it out. And when you can’t, you’re going to be one step closer to understanding Tarsus, and that’s how we’re going to begin.”

Jim swallowed, and turned to Bones. The doctor gave him a thumbs up and mouthed, ‘you’re doing great.’ Jim nodded and turned back out to the class.

“I want to say something, uh, before we really delve in here.” He laughed a little, nervously, and then looked up at the class. They stared back at him, silently. “I didn’t really let myself say this for a really long time, you know? So I’m gonna say it now, because I can, and because I haven’t eaten breakfast.” 

Bones threw him an apple. Jim caught it and held it up in the light of the holo. 

“Damn,” he said, loudly. “I’m starving.”

And that was it. There was nothing evil about the word. There was nothing about it which would re-burry his friends on Tarsus. He took a deep bite of the apple and grinned to his audience. Everything was going to be okay.

"Now!" Jim turned back to his projected lesson. "Let's begin."

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my work, consider checking out my original content [here](https://books2read.com/u/3R1aRn) or follow me [here](https://www.facebook.com/kandersonbooks/)!


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